


火

by lazaefair



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Guardians of the Whills, M/M, Self-Harm, Self-Immolation, Suicide, suicide as political protest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9521249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazaefair/pseuds/lazaefair
Summary: The first Guardian sets herself on fire two years into the occupation of the Temple.





	

The first Guardian sets herself on fire two years into the occupation of the Temple.

She’s savvy about it. She gets a slicer friend to set up a streaming holocam, broadcast into a sliced HoloNet relay, sent to every news network within reach, all the nearby Mid Rim planets, and to the Rebel Alliance besides.

She doesn’t say anything, in the vid. The footage shows her sitting cross-legged in nelumbo position on the flagstones of the largest city square in NiJedha. The Temple of the Whills fills the background, striking and instantly recognizable. She looks like she’s praying, her eyes closed and her lips moving slightly, her face serene in the peace of the enlightened. Her hair and her robes glisten slightly in the cold winter light, as if she has anointed herself in sacred oil before beginning her meditation.

It is when she opens her eyes and strikes the match that the viewer begins to understand.

*

The smell of her martyrdom lingers in the square for hours.

*

Even when the commander of the Imperial garrison himself orders the street cleaners to change their schedules and cover the square a day earlier, they’re reluctant. It takes nearly another day for a few to show up, the few willing, who bow their heads and say what prayers they know as they shuffle back and forth with their cleaning droids, back and forth.

When they’re done, the square stinks of industrial-strength cleaner fluids. The blackened stones remain in silent accusation. There is nothing that can be done about it, the head of the street cleaners tells the commander.

*

On the Rebel base, Mon Mothma bows her head and orders the vid to be archived permanently in the Alliance databanks.

*

On Alderaan, Bail and Leia place a starflower sprig in the Hall of Remembrance together.

*

In a tiny, cramped apartment in NiJedha, Baze Malbus goes to his knees in front of Chirrut Îmwe and begs.

“Don’t do it. Please, please, please, my beloved, don’t do it–”

Chirrut curves a hand around Baze’s head, yet there is no mercy in the gentleness of his gesture. “If the Force wills it, my beloved,” but Baze chokes on a sob.

“Please.”

(Chirrut doesn’t set himself on fire.)

(Baze takes his first assassination job within a year.)


End file.
